New Book for the 250th of America

Hello Reader!

I hope you make it to a historic site today for Pennsylvania's Charter Day. If you get to the Charter, that's a special moment. 345 years of PA history🎉

I told you in my first email that something was coming. Here it is.

I’ve spent the last several months deep in Pennsylvania’s archives organizing everything I know about Colonial and Revolutionary Era records into one resource. The result is Colonial Pennsylvania Genealogy Research: Communities and Revolutionary Era Records, 1681-1790 — my third Pennsylvania genealogy book, and the one I’m most proud of.

This isn’t a tutorial. I didn’t write it to teach you how to research. You already know how to do that.

What I wrote instead is a guide to who was here in Pennsylvania that first 100 years.

What's inside this guide is what records actually exist for Pennsylvania from 1681 to 1790. Where they’re held. Which archives keep them. How they’re organized. What you’ll find when you get there. And how to move from one record type to the next when you hit a wall.

Here’s what’s inside:

• Every ethnic and religious group that settled in Pennsylvania — English Quakers, Germans, Scots-Irish, Welsh, African Americans, and 18 others (yes. we had over 23 distinct communities here then).
• Every major record type that survives — Continental Army rolls, militia records, pension applications, depreciation pay, tavern licenses, naturalization records, church records, deeds, tax lists, non-associator lists, and more.
• County-by-county research strategies, because Pennsylvania’s boundaries changed during the Revolution and knowing which county held your ancestor’s records is half the battle.
• And a complete resource guide to which archives hold what, how to access them, and what’s online versus what you have to visit in person.

If you’ve ever said any of these, this book is for you:

• “My ancestor served in the Revolution but I can’t find proof.”
• “I found him in the 1790 census but nothing before that.”
• “I know he was in Pennsylvania but I don’t know which county.” “
• I found a record but I don’t know what it means.”

It's available now on Amazon in Paperback or Kindle​

This is the book I wish had existed when I started researching my own Pennsylvania ancestors.

I hope it helps you make new discoveries of your Revolutionary PA Ancestors!

Denyse Allen Founder, PA Ancestors